How to Save $2.5 Trillion in 10 years While Making (Almost) Everyone Better Off

[jpmassar]

schmengie has discussed the Republicans' proposal to cut $2.5 trillion over ten years from the Federal Budget. I thought I would post my own $2.5 trillion reduction plan, without such gimmicks as listing 'Mohair Subsidies Elimination' at $1 million per year. So here it is, an alternative, a simple 6-point plan that probably reduces the Federal deficit by

Comments

[jpmassar]

Because the Republican plan is stupid. Almost all the savings come from freezing discretionary spending at 2008 or 2006 levels, without any cost/benefit analysis or any provision to increase spending on beneficial programs and decrease spending on obsolete and ineffective ones.

It's pixie dust. "We're going to define away the problem, and then we won't have to worry about making any decisions for ten years."

And its incredibly short-sighted pixie dust. The biggest items on the list aside from cutting the federal travel budget in half (which seems like something one just sticks in there for show, without any analysis whether it is practicable to do such a thing) are R&D items -- DoE research, High Speed Rail, New Starts Transit. R's want to keep us in the 1950's, when the internal combustion engine was king.

I'm sure there are items on that list that make perfect sense to go away; and I'm sure there are other items not on that list that could go away without a problem. But many of their reductions are either misguided (resulting in overall cost increases in the long run) or trivial.

Probably the best way to get rid of these small expenditure items would be something along the lines of the military bases closure commission. Have a commission create a list and have an up-or-down vote.